Wild Animal Sanctuary

Sunday, Ryan had the awesome idea of going over to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Hudson. We have always wanted to go there and we finally made it. It's only about 20 minutes from our house. It's a sanctuary out in the country with acres and acres of rescued wild animals. Mainly they have tigers, lions, and bears (both black AND grizzly!!). All of the animals are rescued from horrible conditions. When you go you get an entire binder filled with information on every single animal and it kills me to think that there are humans out there who would do such things to an animal. Some of the tigers that they were rehabilitating had been kept in such close quarters that their muscles never developed. So if they let them out into a big, open space, the tigers can only go a few feet and they just wear out. So sad:-(

I'd have to say the coolest animal I saw was this HUGE grizzly bear. I can honestly say I've never seen a grizzly (thank goodness!!). I saw plenty of black bears around town when I lived in Aspen and they were so entertaining. I learned very quickly to keep my trash locked up after one stole a bag off my porch and dumped it all over my walkway after eating all the junk. Oh.. and picking up bear poop was always fun;-)

Daddy had to get in on the action!

I really don't think it's fair that these guys don't like to cuddle. It just looks so tempting!!

I wish you could see him better but this was one of the grizzly bears. I love the sign!

They thought the binoculars were pretty nifty. I wonder if they could even see anything. I even have a hard time using them!

They had their own swimming pools!!

Awww....

We couldn't leave without buying a huge tiger from the giftshop. It's a non-profit organization so you just can't feel guilty buying huge stuffed animals! The twins just love their new "Tommy the Tiger". Aren't we creative?!?!